3D Onject Normal Maps Channel

[KSHMR-3D 5]

Hello everyone,
My team and I have been working in 3ds Max, trying to use Normal Maps on 3D objects to achieve better lighting and shadow effects. However, it seems that for the .gr2 (Granny 2) format, only the Diffuse and Opacity channels are supported.

There doesn’t seem to be any clear information about this topic in the community, so my goal here is to find someone who has knowledge about it and, whether paid or unpaid, to achieve a proper solution together.

As you know, the community has recently made some progress in Shader, Lighting, and DirectX9 areas, and I believe this is a field we should keep developing further.

If I’ve posted this in the wrong section, I’d appreciate it if a moderator could move it to the appropriate one.

Have a great day, and good discussions everyone!

Edited October 24, 2025 by KSHMR-3D
Translate fixit

[Syreldar 2739]

This is not a turkish forum. While the topic is surely appreciated, please rewrite it in English.

[KSHMR-3D 5]

11 minutes ago, Syreldar said:

This is not a turkish forum. While the topic is surely appreciated, please rewrite it in English.

There was such an error because of automatic translation, I corrected it

[Jawwad 4513]

Most of the time you can combine the maps in paint.net or photoshop, as far as I know

[TheEqualizer 117]

On 10/24/2025 at 9:08 PM, KSHMR-3D said:

Hello everyone,
My team and I have been working in 3ds Max, trying to use Normal Maps on 3D objects to achieve better lighting and shadow effects. However, it seems that for the .gr2 (Granny 2) format, only the Diffuse and Opacity channels are supported.

There doesn’t seem to be any clear information about this topic in the community, so my goal here is to find someone who has knowledge about it and, whether paid or unpaid, to achieve a proper solution together.

As you know, the community has recently made some progress in Shader, Lighting, and DirectX9 areas, and I believe this is a field we should keep developing further.

If I’ve posted this in the wrong section, I’d appreciate it if a moderator could move it to the appropriate one.

Have a great day, and good discussions everyone!

It is not clear to me what the problem is.

Is the problem exporting the normal map to the gr2 file or reading the exported normal map at run time?

If it's the former, then the limitation is likely the exporter you are using not exporting the normal map related data. If it's the latter, then you may need to figure out how to properly read the normal map at runtime.

Note: This is just my opinion, I am no expert in normal mapping, and haven't used normal mapping with models. I don't see anything that suggests the gr2 file format cannot/does not support normal maps.